DANCING bearS park BELITSA

13.6.2018

A safe haven for former dancing bears

In 2000, FOUR PAWS and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation jointly opened the DANCING BEARS PARK Belitsa , a near-natural home for former dancing bears where they can spend the rest of their lives. The bear sanctuary is located in the Rila mountains close to the town of Belitsa, around 170 kilometres south-east of the capitol, Sofia. Today, 26 bears live here on 12 hectares. The newest inhabitants are the two Albanian bears, Jeta and Riku.

visit the DANCING BEARS PARK Belitsa

Daily from 12 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The keeping of dancing bears has a long tradition in Bulgaria. Thanks to the FOUR PAWS initiative and its adoption of the country's last three dancing bears in 2007, we were able to end this practice in Bulgaria once and for all. The torturous training of bears was already banned in 1998. But a decade later, many bears were still living in chains.